Monday, April 30, 2012

On May 1 an important event takes place in Sardinia: St. Efisio's celebration. This consists on a procession with the statue of Saint Efisio, that starts in Cagliari and ends in Nora, crossing several other cities in the island. It's the biggest procession in Europe and one of the most colorful things I've ever seen, and the city of Cagliari (extremely beautiful) is the perfect frame for it! (pictures from May 1, 2009)

Saturday, April 21, 2012

When spring arrives my toughts generally run quickly to summer, I'm already planning my holidays and I can't wait 'till august! Will I be able to work for other 5 months?!???? Looking to old pictures from past and unforgettable vacations it's the only thing that can help me to face other long months of hard work! These pictures are from a super funny vacation in Ibiza and Formentera. I liked a lot the beaches and the sea in Formentera and I had a lot of fun in Ibiza (even if I found the nightlife a little bit transgressive for me, but if you don't experience it in your '20s, when???)

Tourists and travellers...what's the difference? I like to be a tourist, I like to be pictured next to cities' major monuments, buying stupid and useless souvenirs, eating in crowed little restaurants where no one seems to be a local..I think there's nothing bad with this; by the way, being a traveller is more fascinating. What does it mean for you to be a traveller? For me, embracing as much as you can the culture of the Country you're visiting, living with the locals, becoming friends with them, be hosted in their houses, trying to learn their cooking, getting closer to their mentality, their way of dressing (yes, you've read right) and their behaviour. It takes time to achieve some of these things and mostly you reach them without realizing it, so you need to stay at least a couple of months in the Country you're visiting. All this happened to me. And for the first time, I felt to be a traveller besides being a tourist. It has been said that each city needs to be seen twice, the first time as a tourist and the second time as a local. Right. You'll ask me, how can I switch from a tourist to a traveller without moving to another Country and without taking a sabbatical year to go around the world?? With the couchsurfing. This is a project born in 2003 (so it's widely known) with the idea of creating a hospitality network between people from all over the world, so that who travels can afford the accomodation without spending a fortune, and who stays, can travel comfortably from his own home interacting with people from different cultures. Convenient, isn't it?

Besides couchsurfing, other similar networks have been created in the last few years, one of these is Tripping.com signing up to this site will let you to be in contact with many locals of the place you're visiting, who can host or become a special touristic guide to show travelers the real life of their city, introducing them to their dailylife, their family and friends, in short, a real cultural exchange!! The website of this network is really nice, and there's also a rich blog, where I had the honor to publish a guest post about Budapest some months ago ;)https://www.tripping.com/blog/blog/2012/01/16/must-see-sights-in-budapest-hungary/

Another example is homeforexchange.com, this time the exchange is about your home and your life!!! Brave choice, maybe a little bit risky...but interesting for sure!! The home exchange has been the main story of a nice romantic comedy from a few years back, "The Holiday".

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Yesterday my young cousin Andrea (a geek and nerd in his early '20s) showed me this video, I liked it so much that I decided to share it with you (maybe you haven't already seen it), it's a short movie of a 6 weeks trip around the world of 3 guys, sponsored by Sta Travel Australia. After some searches on the web I found other 3 cool similar videos...what do you think of them?!?I wish I could do a 6 weeks (or more) trip around the world! p.s. how cute is the guy in this video??!??;)

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Queensland, also known as The Sunshine State, most of the time there's the sun!I visited Brisbane, a very pretty city with a wonderful nature and many parks, also a city with such a relaxing atmosphere! I guess their citizens live a very happy and easy life! I suggest you to take a ferry boat from Brisbane to Moreton Island, a paradisiac place I've already talked about in the opening post of this blog... http://the-travelbook.blogspot.it/2011/11/moreton-island.html